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U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

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Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#71

Post by afarrell »

germinalphrase wrote: post #43
altacc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a non-US perspective, it seems that a lot of Americans are quick to conclude that a civil war is around the corner, even on HN where one would hope for a more nuanced analysis. There can't be that many boogaloo boys on this forum, so I wonder how common this narrative is in the US at the moment to make it a go-to conclusion. Is it really common to hear talk of this in the US? From what I see of human nature, mos…

There is a distinct element of the American psyche that focuses on anti-government suspicions, self determination, armed resistance, etc. It’s part of our founding mythos and reinvents itself in all sorts of contexts. Doesn’t mean it is at all realistic for our present circumstances. I don’t happen to think so. An increase in stochastic violence? Sure. Actual, organized civil war? No chance.

It is also a part of the family histories of many Americans. Many of them are descended from people who made the decision to flee 1000s of miles before things got really bad.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#72

Post by incomingpain »

dntrkv wrote: post #39
incomingpain wrote: post #2

GDP: -1.4% DOW: -8.36% YTD S&P500: -12.22% YTD NASDAQ: -20.17% YTD Inflation: 8.5% Interest rate: 0.5%(increasing once by 0.25%) Balance of trade: $-89.2B >they still think the Fed will be able to rein in inflation without triggering a recession. It was raised once and everything is collapsing underneath. Don't know how you look at all this and think 'it'll be fine'. There's a general rule that this kind of behaviour…

Oh yeah, remember the civil war of 1982? When inflation was 14% and The Fed raised rates to purposefully start a recession? Give me a break, we’ve been through much worse. Let’s stop with the FUD please.

>Oh yeah, remember the civil war of 1982? When inflation was 14% and The Fed raised rates to purposefully start a recession?

High inflation and raising rates going into a recession is not going to trigger a civil war or even really unrest in any major way.

>Give me a break, we’ve been through much worse. Let’s stop with the FUD please.

political polarization in the usa has never been so bad except for ...

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#73

Post by matthewdgreen »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #67
matthewdgreen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a well-functioning democracy is probably the best insulation against this. You don't need a civil war when you can vote for a different government.

>"You don't need a civil war when you can vote for a different government." This is one of those things that works perfectly in principle but does not seem to work in practice. I've lived in solidly red or blue districts all my life and in only one election did the party representation switch to a different team. That was only because blue team had two top-tier names splitting the vote which allowed a red team repres…

The US has a lot of problems. For one thing, we have a Presidential system in which control of Congress can be held by a different party than the Presidency, which leads to a situation where there are two "plausibly legitimate" elected governments that are in conflict. In many other countries this has resulted in coups and instability (usually in favor of unilateral executive power.) The US is unique in that we're basically the only country that has thrived under this system. For what it's worth, the alternative is a Parliamentary system where the legislature elects the executive.

The US also has a lot of gerrymandering of Congressional districts, and far too few of them (don't get me started on the ridiculous Senate.) Plus it has lots of minority veto points like the filibuster requiring 60 votes, the electoral college, and the Supreme Court. Some of these exist "by design" and can be beneficial, but they also present the possibility of legitimacy concerns.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#74

Post by shadowgovt »

pjc50 wrote: post #49

Always wondering exactly what people mean when they talk of "civil unrest", and who and how will it start. Do the various riots in 2020 America or the Jan 6 storming of the capitol count? On the other hand, Elon Musk Twitter purchase: $44bn. There's plenty of money out there still. I think it's unlikely that merely raising rates will do anything, for two reasons: firstly there's a real need to do some fiscal policy a…

> Do the various riots in 2020 America or the Jan 6 storming of the capitol count?

They do. So does Occupy Wall Street. It's actually been a little over a decade of people of many political stripes having the general impression that there's a significant disconnect between the will of the elected officials and the will of the people. People disagree about root causes and remedies.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#75

Post by Consultant32452 »

paywallasinbeer wrote: post #30
incomingpain wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-24/biden-say... In terms of farmers retiring with a non-zero reduction of food produced but also farmers in north america getting more $ to ship their food overseas. In addition to food inflation pushing food prices up to unaffordable levels. I agree with biden, food shortages will be happening.

That seems like an odd mismatch between Biden and Psaki. Do you think it's possible Biden was speaking about the World, more specifically Europe, and Psaki was speaking about the US? If not, I am curious as to why you think there is a mismatch between them on this issue. Non paywall link to that article: https://archive.ph/Rbnv4

I have no idea what's going to happen with food, but it's very common for Biden to say something and then Psaki or other administration officials to walk it back.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#76

Post by lumost »

miohtama wrote: post #65
lumost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many troubling things happening at the moment. From a US centric point of view. - Inflation is at it's highest since the 1970s in the US - There is a large military conflict in Europe. - There are shortages of chips, energy, and food on the horizon. - Unprofitable growth stocks have valuations as high as 100:1 on revenue. - There is increasing militarized tension on many portions of the global supply chain…

There is also financialization that has been going for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization Finance industry share going up vs. Real economy output, which could be cause or the consequence of high valuations.

Could also be an artifact of a global economy based around the dollar.

Quoting Asimov's description of Trantor in Foundation.

> This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves to be few for the complications of the task.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#77

Post by adolph »

taylodl wrote: post #55

The fact the Fed is even contemplating a rate hike tells me they're misreading what's going on. The inflation we're seeing isn't a result of a hot economy needing to be kept in check, it's the fact that 40% of China's production is on lockdown and just about every product made, regardless of where it's made, is relying on part(s) coming from China. Supply is constrained and therefore prices are rising. Likewise, supp…

> supply is constrained

and money is not constrained. What could go wrong?

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#78

Post by bitcurious »

taylodl wrote: post #55

The fact the Fed is even contemplating a rate hike tells me they're misreading what's going on. The inflation we're seeing isn't a result of a hot economy needing to be kept in check, it's the fact that 40% of China's production is on lockdown and just about every product made, regardless of where it's made, is relying on part(s) coming from China. Supply is constrained and therefore prices are rising. Likewise, supp…

In my neck of the woods, by far the largest and most impactful inflation has been in the housing sector - 50% price inflation over the past two years. This is entirely attributable to the Fed's pumping of soft assets like stocks, leading to a bunch of paper millionaires cashing out.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#79

Post by muh_gradle »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #48
matthewdgreen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe also losing 1.1 million people (according to the CDC's "excess deaths" website) wasn't that good for our economy either.

Actually as callous as it sounds extra deaths are good for the economy. More dead people means fewer competitors for all resources except labor. What that means is fewer people need stuff and there are fewer people to make stuff, so the stuff the dead people had is easy to obtain for the living while employers have to pay more for labor because there is less of it. As evidence the black plague was considered one of t…

This sounds almost like some version of the broken window fallacy. But there is no way that ~1 million dead Americans from COVID has helped this country economically. Supply chains have been hurt by COVID. Hospitalizations means unproductive workers. Deaths means unproductive workers. We are not thriving at all right now.

Re: U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter

#80

Post by johnsimer »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #48
matthewdgreen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe also losing 1.1 million people (according to the CDC's "excess deaths" website) wasn't that good for our economy either.

Actually as callous as it sounds extra deaths are good for the economy. More dead people means fewer competitors for all resources except labor. What that means is fewer people need stuff and there are fewer people to make stuff, so the stuff the dead people had is easy to obtain for the living while employers have to pay more for labor because there is less of it. As evidence the black plague was considered one of t…

A reduction in people in the economy is good for some subsegments but for the economy as a whole, no

Think about the networks effects of an economy. An economy of one person has a size of zero units. An economy of two people has a size of one unit, an economy of n people has a max size of n^2 units, or more really nlogn, when you take into account the Gaussian distribution of value between each node of the network.

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